supply inspiration and vitality to such correspondence. But would
Dean Swift have put the daily record of his life upon paper for
another than Stella to peruse? Would Leander have swum the
Hellespont for the sake of meeting any girl but Hero upon the
distant shore? As it was, he was drowned for his pains. The rest of
us cannot swim Hellesponts, keep diaries, nor correspond, as foolish
young people have done and do. We have books to read, business to
attend to, duties to perform, tastes to gratify, ambition to feed.
Who could bear to have his correspondents always upon his hands? Who
could endure such a tax upon his patience as they would become? Who
would send for his letters? Who would not rather run away from the
postmen, for fear of the next discharge?

In the analogy between conversation and correspondence may, perhaps,
be found a key to the problem. Those of us who are not lovers,
school-girls, or spinsters are not desirous of keeping up a colloquy,
day in and day out. Nor are we in the habit of resuming a subject, in
the next interview, at the precise point where we left it. A
"regular" conversation, after the fashion of a regular correspondence,
is, as between two individuals mutually unknown, or as among a number,
invariably a failure. However recently persons may have parted
company, at meeting they commence _de novo_; a new talk grows out of
the circumstances and thoughts of the moment, which ends as
naturally as it began, when the talkers get tired or are obliged to
stop. Sometimes but one of two or three opens her lips, but
conversation, nevertheless, goes on; since an open ear is the most
pointed question, and sympathy is the same, whether or not put into
words.

To conversation carried on at a distance of space and time, through